Edible LA | No 16

Member

Bricia Lopez

ON THIS

ON

Bricia Lopez preparing her

by Carolina Korman

Lopez by

NOTE

Thebest playdate I had as a kid, I mean the best playdate ever, was on Martha’s Vineyard with a friend whose mom was an artist. She had an old barn on the property which she used as a studio and, for our playdate, she basically locked us in with a huge can of pastels and the biggest piece of paper I’d ever seen that covered the entire floor. What did I draw? A chocolate factory because—of course—my dad worked for Nestle and, since I was vague on the whole thing, I spent a lot of time thinking about what he could possibly do. The conveyer belt ended up winding all around that barn, churning out chocolate which, to my kid mind, included huge white feathery chickens laying eggs. Now, all these years later, I realize it’s time to find out and so…drumroll…here’s an issue all about chocolate, savory and sweet. We begin with our cover girl, Bricia Lopez, who epitomizes everything that’s great about LA. A partner at James Beard Award-winning Guelaguetza with her three siblings, Bricia began working alongside her family in the restaurant business when she was just a girl. Crowned Oaxacan Princess by Jonathan Gold, our writer, Jennifer Piette, takes Bricia all the way to what we think is a more fitting title: Mole Queen.

When I asked Ellen Collett what she wanted to write about chocolate, she had only one word: See’s. It’s an iconic Southern California landmark that’s loomed large in so many childhoods around here. Read on for the skinny on all their sweet deliciousness.

Next we have a talk with David Menkes, a local bean-to-bar chocolate-maker who got his start as a visual effects artist at Disney. Letterpress just swept the gold label awards at the The Academy of Chocolate in London, the Academy Awards of chocolate, and he and his wife, Corey, are right here in Hollywood. Through them we learn of the allimportant relationship with the farmers who grow cacao all over the world, the nuances and complexities of a colonial model that good people are trying to change.

Which leads us to a plantation in Costa Rica and Marvin, who’s at the beginning of his chocolate journey but, with the help of two young chefs at a lovely hotel, has great hopes to succeed.

Shauna Burke, our travel editor, was lucky enough to see the Big Five at a glorious safari lodge, a very personal story because three generations of her family visited there. Though our focus here at Edible LA is hyperlocal, our Edible Explorer column is where we feature the places and tastes that inspire us from around the world.

Ken Concepcion does his usual exciting roundup of Fall cookbooks, and Rose Wilde bakes us a spectacular cake we call The Viv, as in The Viv is Ready for her Closeup. And, last but not least, many thanks go to Carolina Korman for her epic portrait of Bricia Lopez as well as her cake-wrangling photo skills. It’s such a pleasure to work with talented writers and photographers.

Raising my cup of spicy hot chocolate to you all—

Contributors

Shauna Burke

@iamshaunaburke

Our art director and travel editor ditched the corporate office to become a classically trained chef and sommelier. She now spends her time writing, authoring plant-based cookbooks, and traveling with her family to experience the world through food.

Ken Concepcion @djgnocchi

Ken is co-owner of Now Serving, a well-loved cookbook and culinary shop in Chinatown. Before becoming the co-owner with his wife and partner, Michelle Mungcal, he worked as a chef in the restaurant industry for nearly 20 years.

Carolina Korman @carolinakormanphoto

As our photography editor, Carolina’s PhD in Psychology and background in Fine Art translates into her images of local food. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, her work has also appeared in such publications as Angeleno, and she’s on the give-back team of LA’s most famous bake sale, And Gather for Good.

Jennifer Piette

@jennifer_fieldpiette

Jennifer is the owner and founder of Narrative Food, a B-corp gift box company that not only hand-picks artisanal products, but tells the story of each as well.

Rose Wilde @trosewilde

Rose Wilde is the passionate baker, owner, and Master Food Preserver and Master Gardener behind @redbread. Wilde Flour is her special on Tastemade.

NO. 16

Edible Communities

James Beard Foundation

2011 Publication of the Year

2022

PUBLISHER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Lisa Alexander

ART DIRECTOR

Shauna Burke

PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Carolina Korman

TRAVEL EDITOR

Shauna Burke

CONTRIBUTORS

Lisa Alexander Shauna Burke

Ellen Collett

Ken Concepcion Bri Dwyer

Carolina Korman

Jennifer Piette

Adali Schell

Rose Wilde

COVER PHOTOGRAPHY

Carolina Korman

DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING

Deborah Garcia deborah@ediblela.com

Edible LA© is published quarterly and distributed throughout Los Angeles County. Subscription rate is $28 annually. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used without written permission from the publisher. Publisher expressly disclaims all liability for any occurence that may arise as a consequence of the use of any information or recipes. Every e ort is made to avoid errors, misspellings, and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, please accept our sincere apologies and notify us. Thank you.

edibleLA’s autumn shopping guide

AUTUMN PRODUCE

Apples

Avocados Beets Broccoli Brussels sprouts Cabbage Carrots Cauliflower Celery Chard Cherimoyas Chiles Collard greens Eggplant Grapefruit Grapes Green beans Guava Kale Kiwi Kohlrabi Lima beans Mandarins Oregano Pears Persimmons Pomegranates Rosemary Rutabagas Sweet potatoes Thyme Valencia oranges Winter squash Yams

YEAR-ROUND PRODUCE

Almonds Apples Arugula Bananas Beets Bell peppers Black-eyed peas Bok choy Broccoli Broccolini Carrots Cauliflower Chard Coconut Dandelion greens Edible flowers Garlic Kale Leeks Lemons Lettuce Mushrooms Onions Oranges Parsnips Pistachios Potatoes Radishes Snow peas Soft herbs Spinach Sprouts Walnuts Winter squash Yams

AUTUMN SEAFOOD

Halibut Rock fish King salmon Sardines Spot prawns Swordfish Albacore tuna White seabass Yellowtail YEAR-ROUND SEAFOOD

Abalone Black cod Clams Oysters Rock crab Sanddabs Urchin

YEAR-ROUND

GOODS

Eggs Coffee Dairy Honey Olive oil Meats Potted herbs Preserves Pickles Grains

by Lisa Alexander c e l e b r a t

This is the time when things start to change in California and our constant sunshine-y days turn windy and a tad more dramatic. Enter apples, persimmons, figs, pears, and winter squash. We crave comfort food—soups, stews— and the excitement of holiday parties, and so we’ve handpicked a few celebratory recipes from chefs and cookbook author friends.

Cranberry Gingerbread Galette (shown on page 7)

Excerpted from Sheet Pan Sweets: Simple and Streamlined Dessert Recipes by Molly Gilbert, page 174-175. October 4, 2022. Union Square and Co.

serves 8 to 10

Made with a gingerbread-spiced dough tucked around a bright, tart fresh cranberry filling, this galette is an unexpected way to bring classic holiday flavors to life, like a pie-shaped mash-up between gingerbread cookies and cranberry sauce, in the best possible way. Just be sure to serve the galette slightly warm, with big scoops of cool vanilla ice cream. If you can’t find fresh cranberries, fresh blueberries make a good substitute; just reduce the sugar in the filling by ½ cup.

Crust

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

½ cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon ground allspice

½ teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon water

Turbinado sugar

Filling

4 cups fresh cranberries (16 ounces)

1 cup granulated sugar

½ cup packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons fresh orange zest

¼ cup fresh orange juice

1 teaspoon ground ginger ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

Vanilla ice cream, for serving (optional)

1. Make the crust: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a large bowl with a handheld mixer, cream together the butter and granulated sugar on medium-high speed until fluffy and smooth, 3 to 5 minutes. Add 1 egg and the vanilla and beat until smooth, 1 minute more. Add the flour, salt, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves and mix on low speed until the dough just comes together without any streaks. Gather the dough into a flat disc, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 1 day.

2. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F with a rack in the center position. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

3. Make the filling: In a large bowl, stir together the

Roasted Fig and Fennel Salad with Walnuts and Chevre

cranberries, granulated sugar, brown sugar, flour, orange zest, orange juice, ginger, cinnamon, and salt.

4. On a lightly floured surface, roll the gingerbread dough out into a large oval, about ¼ inch thick. Gently transfer the dough to the prepared pan.

5. Pour the cranberry filling into the center of the dough and spread it evenly with a rubber spatula, leaving a 1-inch border. Fold the edges of the dough over the filling, pinching any cracks together to seal.

6. In a small bowl, whisk the remaining egg with the water, then brush the egg wash over the galette crust. Sprinkle liberally with turbinado sugar. Bake the galette for 30 to 40 minutes, until the crust is deeply browned and the filling is gently bubbling. Allow the galette to cool for about 10 minutes.

7. Slice the galette into wedges and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top, if desired. The galette will keep, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

Roasted Fig and Fennel Salad with Walnuts and Chevre

Excerpted from The Apricot Lane Farms Cookbook by Molly Chester and Sarah Owens, foreward by Alice Waters published by Avery copyright 2022.

This simple, warm, and satisfying salad is a wonderful balance of sweet and savory. The Fruit Basket section of our orchard is home to four varieties of figs, yet each year I most look forward to the ripening of Violette de Bordeaux, which tastes just like my memories of a childhood fig cookie. I don’t think nature could have crammed any more figgy flavor into such a small package! That said, Black Mission figs, which are popular for a good reason, lend a similar robust color and fragrance to this salad and hold up well when roasted. If you are making the salad in the autumn months, try using earthy hazelnuts instead of walnuts or rich and buttery macadamia nuts for a milder experience.

SERVES 4

salad

4 cups cored and ¼-inch-sliced fennel bulbs (about 6 small bulbs)

3 tablespoons unrefined avocado oil

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black peppercorns

8 ripe but firm fresh brown figs, stems removed and halved

¼ cup chopped toasted walnuts

3 tablespoons crumbled chèvre (1½ ounces)

¼ cup fennel fronds

1 tablespoon chiffonade-cut fresh mint leaves

dressing

1 teaspoon minced garlic (1 clove)

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves or 1½ teaspoons dried

WHAT’S IN SEASONShaved Kale, Persimmon, and Pomegranate Salad with Fig Balsamic Dressing

2 tablespoons cold-pressed extra- virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (½ large lemon)

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F and position a rack in the middle.

2. Make the salad: In a medium bowl, toss the fennel with the oil, salt, and pepper. Spread over a large unlined baking sheet and roast for 45 minutes, or until golden. The fennel will shrink to half its size and develop dark, caramelized tips. Remove from the oven and transfer to a bowl.

3. Preheat the broiler to high and position the oven rack 6 inches below the broiler.

4. On the same baking sheet, place the figs cut side up. Place the pan under the broiler and broil for 5 to 7 minutes, until the edges of the figs darken. Remove from the oven and let the figs cool for at least 10 minutes.

5. Make the dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together the garlic, thyme, oil, lemon juice, and salt and set aside.

6. To serve, pour the dressing over the roasted fennel and toss to combine. Add the figs and walnuts and fold gently. Transfer the salad to a serving platter and garnish with the chèvre, fennel fronds, and mint. Serve immediately, at room temperature.

Shaved Kale, Persimmon, and Pomegranate Salad with Fig Balsamic Dressing

Excerpted from Love is Served: Inspired Plant-Based Recipes from Cafe Gratitude by Seizan Dreux Ellis and Cafe Gratitude, April 7, 2020, Avery

Find the recipe on ediblela.com.

I’ll Take

the Chocolate

Aleksandra Crapanzano has done it again. Eat. Cook. LA., her fantastic cookbook, was about LA as it transformed into one of our nation’s preeminent food cities. Now, with Gateau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes, she’s nailed what’s so inimitable about the French and how they just casually throw together a show stopper. Here are a couple of our chocolate-y favorites.

Cake Chocolat Orange

Dark chocolate and candied orange give this cake an almost confection-like flavor, but it is not too sweet and, thanks to its sturdiness, can travel for le weekend. Serve for dessert with a dollop of crème fraîche or all day, in thick slices, with coffee or, at midnight, with a snifter of Cognac.

On the third day, try it toasted and blanketed in marma lade. In fact, a marmalade glaze will add a sweet pucker. Either warm a jar of marmalade until liquefied, strain and pour over the cake, or make a proper glaze by straining, then adding in a little confectioners’ sugar. About the al mond paste. I use Odense. This recipe requires five ounces, which is most, but not all, of one tube. I simply chop up the remaining two ounces and add it with the chocolate chunks. Ideally, the paste should be quite fresh. If stale, you may need to break it up in a food processor.

13 tablespoons unsalted butter, preferably European

11⁄2 cups / 180 grams all-purpose flour

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon / 40 grams unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Valrhona

1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder

1⁄4 teaspoon fine sea salt

5 ounces / 140 grams almond paste, such as Odense

3⁄4 cup plus 1 tablespoon / 165 grams granulated sugar 4 large eggs, at room temperature

2/3 cup whole milk, at room temperature

1 tablespoon Cointreau or Grand Marnier

1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract

80 grams dark chocolate, broken into chunks or 3⁄4 cup chocolate chips

1⁄2 cup candied orange, roughly chopped into 1⁄2-inch pieces

Preheat the oven to 340°F. Butter a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan and place it on a baking sheet. Melt the butter over low heat and set aside to cool until warm but not hot.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt and whisk to combine. Set aside.

In a stand mixer or using handheld electric beaters, beat the almond paste and sugar until sandy in texture. One at a time, at medium speed, add the eggs. Increase the speed to high and whisk for a solid 10 minutes until the mixture forms pale ribbons in its wake. Decrease the speed to low and add the milk, Cointreau and vanilla and whisk until integrated. Add the dry ingredients and continue to whisk at low speed to fully integrate them.

Using a rubber spatula, fold in the chocolate and candied orange. Then, finally, the melted butter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 55–65 minutes. A knife inserted in the center should come out

nearly, but not completely, clean. If it comes out wet with chocolate, you may have simply hit a chunk or chip. In that case, test again rather than risk overbaking the cake. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, then unmold and allow to cool to room temperature.

If storing this cake overnight, wrap it well, once fully cooled to room temperature, in plastic. Leave it at room temperature and it will remain moist for 2 to 3 days, if kept wrapped. If freezing it, place the wrapped cake in a freezer bag and eat within a month or so.

Molten Chocolate Raspberry Cake

I’m a screenwriter, and one of the things you learn to do in the movie business is describe what you’re pitching by appropriating very successful movies and linking them. Supposedly it’s shorthand, but we all know it is to make executives see dollar signs. Hello Stars Wars meets The Lion King. Or would you prefer Titanic meets Casablanca? To use Holly- wood jargon, this is gratin meets molten meets self-saucing meets soufflé.

This is indeed a molten chocolate cake baked large in a soufflé dish. The molten interior makes it self-saucing, and, as it covers fresh fruit, it is something, too, of a gratin. It is deli- ciously sloppy, oozing lava-like streams of chocolate—yes, serve in a bowl with a spoon. One thing to know: timing is important. In a shallow baking dish, it might bake in as little as twenty minutes. In a small, high-sided one, it might take closer to half an hour. What’s key is that the interior remain molten. The center should tremble when the cake is moved. The center should be piping hot and show a bit of structure but still be saucy underneath. Feel free to substitute little wild strawberries, blueberries or currants for the raspberries. This recipe produces six cups of batter, which lends itself to being baked in a shallow eight- to ten-cup gratin dish or cake pan. Don’t try to unmold this—it must be served immediately with a big serving spoon directly from the hot baking dish with plenty of crème fraîche, Chantilly or ice cream.

200 grams dark chocolate, such as Valrhona Manjari

64% cacao

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

7 large eggs, at room temperature

1 tablespoon crème de framboise

3⁄4 cup plus 1 tablespoon / 105 grams cake or all-pur pose flour

1⁄4 teaspoon fine sea salt 1 half-pint raspberries

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Butter a shallow 8-cup gratin dish or a 9-inch cake pan. An 11 x 7-inch baking pan will work as well.

In a double boiler, melt the chocolate. Pour into the bowl of a stand mixer and set to medium. With the mixer running, add the butter in pieces. It should melt, while also reducing the temperature of the chocolate. One by one, with the mixer still running, add the eggs, then the crème de framboise. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour and salt. Mix until no streaks of flour remain. Pour the batter into the prepared gratin dish and dot with the rasp berries, letting them sink or gently pushing them down until nearly covered.

Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and bake for 25–40 minutes, depending on the size of the pan. (Baked in an 11 x 7-inch pan, it may take only 30 minutes, while in a 9-inch cake pan, it may take closer to 40. And if your oven runs hot, it may be cooked in only 25.) It is done when the sides are set but the center remains molten and jiggles a little when the dish is moved.

Excerpted from Gateau by Aleksandra Crapanzano. Copy right (c) 2022 by Aleksandra Crapanzano. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.■

Get fresh updates on our work to ensure the future of agriculture includes all Americans.

farmland.org

Discrimination against marginalized groups in agriculture negatively affects all Americans by limiting the opportunities for farmers, workers, and consumers.

AFT is raising up diverse voices in agriculture, because we believe diversity contributes to a more resilient agricultural system, a stronger economy, and a more equitable society.

At American Farmland Trust, we believe agriculture is strengthened through diversity, just like the soil.

Photo by Jill Heyer

Tortilla Starter Kit

With two 2.2 lb bags of Masienda’s best-settling Heirloom Corn Masa Harina (1 each of blue & white) and the incomparable Dona Rosa x Masienda Tortilla Press, consider the Tortilla Starter Kit a first step toward falling down the masa rabbit hole.

$115

narrativefood.com

Holey Grail Donuts

Featuring Hawaii-grown superfood taro, Holey Grail’s donuts are fried in organic coconut and artistically adorned to highlight seasonal flavors. Every donut is made-to-order and served in 100% compostable packaging. Sourcing from locally-owned, hand-picked farms, each week they showcase a new tasting box comprised of four fresh seasonally-rotating flavors.

$15 holeygraildonuts.com

Beast Boxes from Vinovore

Vinovore is that rare Silverlake and Echo Park natural wine shop that showcases only female vintners. Their Beast Boxes are mischievous, interesting and delicious, perfect for that special someone on your list.

prices vary

vinovore.com

Chocolate and Chiles

LA’s Mole Queen on her Secret Sauce

BY JENNIFER PIETTE

It’s early in the morning, and her kitchen team at the Oaxacan Guelaguetza Restaurant in Koreatown is already prepping their mole, stirring giant vats of broth, frying dozens of spices in huge pans, and blending all the ingredients with an industrial stone grinder. Founded by the Lopez family in 1994, Guelaguetza has become a center for the Oaxacan community in Los Angeles, offering dishes made with their family recipes and using carefully sourced Oaxacan ingredients.

Growing up in the restaurant, Bricia and her siblings, Paulina and Fernando, took it over from their parents to carry forth the tradition of Oaxacan cooking. Crowned L.A.’s “Oaxacan Princess” by Jonathan Gold, Bricia is now one of the foremost authorities on Oaxacan culture and cuisine in the U.S. as well as the author of the cookbook, Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico.

Born and raised in Mitla, Oaxaca, Bricia also comes from a long lineage of Oaxacan Mezcal craftsmen. She’s played

“I want people to understand that mole is not a chocolate sauce,” Bricia Lopez says.

L.A. ICON

Photo by Carolina Korman

a major role in popularizing mezcal in the U.S. through her mezcal dedicated bars, and earned the official title of L.A.’s mezcalera from Eric Garcetti in 2013. A true ambassador of Oaxacan cooking in L.A., Bricia’s an integral figure in the food community and known for her passion to share the food and drink traditions of her culture.

As the complex aroma of the mole-in-progress drifts toward us in the restaurant, Bricia and I sit down at a table in the back.

As Bricia tells me, there’s a world of ingredients that go into mole — a combination of aromatics, nuts, chiles, and sweeteners. In the long process, peanuts, sesame seeds, and almonds are first fried together with oregano, allspice, cloves, peppercorns and bay leaves. The chiles blend with the fattiness of the nuts and the sweetness of the plantains and raisins, then everything gets ground together in a stone grinder to achieve a velvety texture. While this grinding process can be replicated at home with a very powerful Vitamix, the texture will be more grainy without a stone grinder.

“It’s still delicious, but it’s not the same,” Bricia says.

Once all the ingredients are ground up, Guelaguetza adds broth, and then the chocolate enters the sauce in the final step.

“Only at the very end, you season it with salt – and yes: chocolate,” Bricia says. “The chocolate comes last, in the form of a tablet.”

This particular sweet chocolate from Oaxaca is toasted and ground with almonds, cinnamon, and sometimes sugar, and then compressed into a tablet that can be melted into the sauce. Bricia says that chocolate is actually used as a seasoning, like salt, in just a small amount – almost equal parts salt and chocolate.

“You season a marinara sauce with salt and honey but no one calls marinara sauce honey sauce,” Bricia says. “Same with barbecue sauce: you season it with brown sugar, but you don’t call it a sugar sauce. Somehow, people who aren’t native to Mexico started calling mole a chocolate sauce because they never thought of seasoning a sauce with chocolate.”

Rather than chocolate, guajillo chiles are the essence of a mole sauce. The secret to a mole sauce, Bricia says, is how

L.A. ICON

Photo by Carolina Korman

to balance the potent and powerful chiles with all the other ingredients — a balance that Guelaguetza has become famous for perfecting in their moles.

Chocolate, though, is still an integral ingredient in Oaxacan culture.

“In Oaxaca we drink a lot of hot chocolate,” Bricia says. “When my kids and my nieces go to Oaxaca, we have chocolate bread too. Every single day.”

Cacao, sugar, almonds, and cinnamon are the base for Oaxacan chocolate — what they call table chocolate. It melts into water, and is frothed with a molinillo — a wooden whisk — to make a cup of perfect hot chocolate. It’s common in Oaxaca to have hot chocolate before you go to bed or for breakfast.

The knowledge of how to balance the complexity of the Oaxacan flavor palate was passed down to Bricia from her mother and grandmother.

“When we still lived in Oaxaca, my mom took her stay-at-home role very seriously,” Bricia says. “Homemade meals every single day, with courses. We had a different agua fresca every day. She would make a feast every time, every day.”

Bricia says they would also go see their grandmother every Sunday for more delicious feasts, where Bricia was a fly on the wall. “You have to earn the trust of Oaxacan women before they’ll let you into their kitchen,” she says, “But once you have their trust, they’ll welcome you.”

“Now my mom trusts me, and she respects me in the kitchen,” Bricia says. “Both my mother and grandmother were very possessive of their kitchens. You weren’t allowed to help — you could only watch. You weren’t even allowed to ask questions. Just watch and smell. I was just so taken aback by how they moved in the kitchen and how they were able to create these delicious meals.”

Her earliest food memories were more of the smells, than the tastes, in the kitchen.

“The smoked chile pasilla in my grandma’s house — her hair always smelled like smoked chiles. Her kitchen was always filled with smoke. And the fresh tortillas, the smell of fresh tortillas, the smell of smoking chiles.”

Bricia said she really learned how to cook though after her father opened up the restaurant when they moved to L.A.. As she grew up, she started to ask questions, and her mother opened up.

L.A. ICON

Photo by Adali Schell

Photo by Adali Schell

“It was only when we were in the process of writing our first cookbook that we spent time in Oaxaca and I learned with her as an adult,” Bricia said. “But having that background, as a child, watching my mom, and my grandma, and then actually executing it as an adult, was a journey.”

She took for granted how great Oaxacan food was until she moved to the U.S., and only then did she realize there was a world where she wouldn’t be able to have that food. It’s through the restaurant that she can share the flavors of her childhood with L.A., and pass the precious knowledge of Oaxacan flavors down to her children, too.

“I was so blessed we had the restaurant,” Bricia says. “I love seeing kids enjoy the food their parents had when their parents were kids… we have customers who started coming when they were babies and they grew up here… and this extends to my own family and my kids… I want them to understand what great food is supposed to taste like. I want them to understand flavor.”

Culture and identity are so connected to flavors, smells and food traditions that get passed down from one’s family; preserving these to share not just with family, but entire communities is such a gift. This generosity is what makes Bricia such an iconic figure in Los Angeles, and how she has so rightly earned the honorary Princess title from Jonathan Gold, though I prefer Mole Queen. ■

L.A. ICON

Photo by Adali Schell

See’s: Best in Candy

BY ELLEN COLLETT

All photos provided by See’s Candies

I’m a fan of Desert Island Lists. Strip away everything you can live without till you arrive at the single thing you love but also need. My Desert Island chocolate is See’s. Keep your Godiva and Cadbury and the famous Belgian Leonidas. Forget that bespoke Parisian guy who makes the most expensive candy per ounce on the planet and does wondrous things with passionfruit cream. There is chocolate, and then there’s See’s.

As a child growing up in Appalachian North Carolina, my father kept chocolate in the drawer of his bedside table and ate a single piece every night at bedtime. We five children associated adulthood with the ability to eat chocolate at will and couldn’t wait to be grown up. Our default family weekend was an overnight road trip (nine hours each way) to the Hershey plant in Pennsylvania where we’d tour the

factory, be plied with samples and visit the gift shop—our true destination—which was the only place in America that sold the giant “novelty” 10lb Hershey bar that was four inches thick, the size of a doormat and required a hammer and chisel to eat. That bar generally lasted us a month, at which point we’d pile back into the station wagon and return to Hershey. We were such frequent visitors that my siblings and I knew the factory spiel by heart and tortured tour guides by reciting it along with them.

As I got older and experienced a greater variety of chocolate, it became clear that my love of Hershey’s was less for its quality and more for the nostalgia and sense of family it offered. And as a company, Hershey grew too big too fast, moved away from what it did well—making chocolate—and began snapping up other companies, producing random things like cough drops and cookies and compiling a dismal record on union-busting and

enforced child labor.

In my 20’s I was smitten with Teuscher champagne truffles, flown to the U.S. from Switzerland twice a week and exclusively sold in tiny jewel-box storefronts in Beverly Hills and on Madison Avenue. The champagne truffle was a gustatorial paradox: the sparkling lightness of a somehowbubbly cream enrobed in a thin chocolate shell. What made Teuscher chocolates such a huge step up from Hershey and its ilk was its ephemeral nature. The company’s refusal to use preservatives meant the clock was ticking the second a box was put on an airplane. They were insanely fresh. On the down side, I could rarely afford them and other than the champagne truffle, the rest of their candies were just okay.

I was a California resident for almost ten years before I tasted See’s. I often passed their La Cienega factory going to and from LAX, but until a store opened in The Grove they hadn’t been on my radar. See’s doesn’t advertise, nor do they need to. For over 100 years, these locally made chocolates have had such an intense following that they’ve become a family tradition for multiple generations. See’s candies are made from fresh ingredients sourced almost exclusively in state. Like Teuscher, See’s has never used preservatives, and for most of its existence the company has been family-owned and operated.

See’s was founded in 1921 by immigrant Charles See, 25 years before Roald Dahl published his great children’s novel about an English Charlie equally obsessed with candy. In some ways, See’s story is as much a fairytale as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

Charles See got his start in candy in 1914 in Toronto as a sales rep for U.S. chocolate manufacturer, Merckens, but dreamed of someday owning his own candy store. In 1920 he moved to Los Angeles with his wife, two young children and elderly widowed mother, Mary. Mary See provided Charles with the golden ticket to launch his dream via her recipes for homemade confections like Maple Walnut Creams, Victoria Toffee and Hand-Dipped Bon Bons, and you will find her framed portrait in every single See’s store in existence. Mother and son opened their first storefront and candy kitchen at 135 Western Avenue. A hundred and one years later, See’s now operates 247 locations nationwide, employs 2600 hundred people (7000 in peak holiday season) and still makes much of its candies the old-fashioned way, by hand.

Charles’ vision for his store was simple: produce his mother’s chocolates with the highest-quality ingredients and sell them at a fair price to bring the customer back. But his vision of chocolate was more complex: confection as connection. Candy-buying’s purpose was to celebrate life’s milestones-- births and weddings and anniversaries. To mark our shared traditions, like Valentine’s and Mother’s Day. To offer sweet consolation in times of bereavement and loss. People might buy boxed candy for their own enjoyment but the essential nature of chocolate is communal. A thing to be shared and gifted. To this day, every See’s store has a small wooden desk with pens and envelopes where the customer can handwrite a gift card to accompany their purchase.

See’s famous motto was and is “Quality Without Compromise.” Charles insisted on the finest butter, sugar, cream and nuts that money could buy. According to historian

Margaret Moos Pick, Charles was such a stickler for purity that his early suppliers were forced to add a whole new tier to their sales pyramids: above “Premium Quality” sat “See’s Quality.” During the Great Depression, rather than downgrade the quality of his ingredients Charles cut his prices and offered consumers bulk rates. In WWII when butter and sugar were rationed, instead of adjusting his mother’s recipes or putting people out of work by closing stores, he produced a limited amount of candy and divided it equally among his shops; when the daily allotment of candy sold out, employees were told to close their doors and go home.

Candy contains so few ingredients that each one must be perfect and consistent across batches. Given that See’s uses neither preservatives in its fillings nor chemicals like potassium sorbate to extend the shelf life of its candy, ingredients must also be fresh, and optimally, by extension, local. Apart from C&H grain sugar from Hawaii, almost all See’s ingredients are sourced in California. Grade AA butter from Challenge Dairies in Dublin, California has been the only butter used in See’s confections for 98 or its 101 year existence. Guittard in San Francisco has exclusively supplied See’s their couverture, or processed chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa butter, for 78 years. Cream, nuts, and raisins each come from a single purveyor, all of them in-state.

See’s current President and C.E.O. Pat Egan, tells me that in March of this year a heat wave wiped out the entire raspberry crop of their long-term supplier. Rather than use an inferior berry, the company suspended production on their raspberry cream truffle indefinitely until something of an equal or superior quality could be found. Some years back, when a barrel of honey’s flavor profile was deemed minutely different from its predecessor (bees are free-ranging and can’t be depended upon to draw their nectar from the same flowers from one season to the next) See’s sent a team to “honey school” to learn how to blend honeys to create a See’s standard.

See’s pride in their candy is exemplified by an early practice Charles initiated of welcoming all customers into his shops with a free sample. If chocolate is a vehicle for human connection and a gift, it makes sense. And it’s an excellent business practice. If you eat the (free) chocolate of your choosing in the store, it’s humanly impossible to leave without buying more.

Although See’s is no longer a family-owned and operated business it’s very much a business that feels like family. A huge number of the workers in the factories have been with the company for more than thirty years. All employees are gifted jeweled lapel pins that indicate their years with See’s. You will routinely see these on the uniforms of candy-sellers in their stores. (Factory workers get them too, but jewelry isn’t worn on the floor for obvious reasons.) A single ruby indicates five years with the company; a single diamond, twenty.

After the death of Charles See’s son, Laurence, the family-owned business was sold in 1972 to multibillionaire Warren Buffett. Buffett was so impressed with See’s product and integrity that he offered three times the book value of the company and made no changes in its management or practices except to fund its expansion. Elon Musk famously trolled Buffett for his protectiveness of the See’s brand, claiming he could “beat” Buffett in the candy arena, but dropped the

challenge when he couldn’t find a superior product.

See’s remains a storied brand, deeply woven into California life. Sonny and Cher first laid eyes on each other in 1962 in a See’s shop where she was selling candy. The See’s conveyer belt at the La Cienega Boulevard factory was also the shooting location for the most-watched episode of 1952’s “I LOVE LUCY” in which Lucy and Ethel get jobs handwrapping bon bons at a candy factory but are forced to stuff candies in their mouths and bras when the belt speeds up and they fall behind. And though Roald Dahl gave us the fantastical river of chocolate that runs through his Willy Wonka’s fictional factory, in 1994 a truck driver fell asleep outside the See’s plant while emptying his tanks, and on that wondrous day the streets of Los Angeles literally ran with chocolate.

The world we live in changes so rapidly, but never in a See’s candy store. Here the black-and-white checkered floors, ruffled window curtains and the salesladies in their 1940’s-era white dresses with black piping and neck bows make me feel as if I’ve stepped into an old black-and-white movie, or simply, back to a time when life was sweeter. Chocolate is connection. See’s always tastes of memory and of childhood, even if it wasn’t yours.

Desert Island lists are brutal. They require exactitude. Give me only one chocolate for the rest of my life and I’ll take See’s Milk Bordeaux, a confection so popular among its devotees that stores often sell out their daily allotment before the close of business. The Milk Bordeaux is an airy, brown sugar buttercream covered in milk chocolate and topped with homemade sprinkles. It’s the perfect balance of textures and flavors and no other candy company produces anything remotely similar. I hate the cliché, but it’s so fresh it literally melts in your mouth. ■

Ellen Collett’s work has been published in The Sun, the Utne Reader, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Nervous Breakdown and elsewhere. She formerly trained as a chef.

Local, Ethical, Sustainable Letterpress Chocolate

But What Exactly is Bean-to-Bar?

BY LISA ALEXANDER

David Menkes started out as a visual effects artist for DreamWorks Animation, his wife, an ecologist—specialty: bats.

“We called her the bat girl,” David said.

This was before they went to St Lucia on vacation and found themselves on the Rabot Estate, one of the oldest chocolate plantations in the world. Like many other chocolate regions, the soil there is rich, volcanic, high altitude and, with its rainforest climate, perfect for growing cacao.

The two were transfixed by the process of growing and fermenting. For months after they came back to LA, they made late night runs for artisanal chocolate bars, which basically blew their minds.

“We’d never tasted anything like it,” Dave says, “And then we noticed we liked some more than others.”

Before long, his desk at DreamWorks became all about chocolate, which made him a lot of new friends. Dave tasted so many different bars, no, held chocolate tastings, that HR told him he’d have to confine things to his lunch break because it was too distracting. No surprise there. Chocolate is distracting. Chocolate is bewitching. Chocolate prevents people from doing their work. Pretty soon Dave started messing around with chocolate-making with Corey and then bringing in his own bars.

Grinding the beans. Photo courtesy of Letterpress Chocolate

top left: David unmolding the chocolate. Photo courtesy of Letterpress Chocolate; bottom left: Corey with freshly roasted beans. Photo courtesy of Letterpress Chocolate.

“They were terrible,” he says.

But the DreamWorks Chocolate Society he founded also happened to be the perfect arena for a pair of budding chocolatemakers. It met once a week to do a blind tasting of six different chocolate bars with a reveal of the makers at the end. Before long, Dave and Corey were sneaking in their own bars and, by the time everyone kept asking for them, the couple found a shared kitchen to convert down the block in South Robertson. When they were docents at the International Printing Museum in Carson, it struck them that making chocolate and printing were both machine-assisted handcrafted arts, and the name Letterpress came to them. A 1921 airmail stamp was the inspiration for their logo, and they traded chocolate with George Bush from A & G Engraving for their copper and magnesium plates. From the first, they knew they would go out of their way to make relationships with cacao farms all over the world, compensating them way over fair market value for their beans.

Chocolate and chocolate-making is an interesting thing. It breeds people who care deeply, even obsessively, about every detail of how the cacao seed becomes that bar in your hand, the one with a silky mouthfeel and perfect snap.

But what does bean to bar really mean?

Cacao pods start out yellow, red and green on the trunk of the diminutive Theobroma tree. The trees themselves are finicky, needing a combo of sunshine and shade, as well as protection from winds, pests and diseases like Witches’ Broom fungus, which wiped out the world cacao capital, Bahia, and its 45 million trees in the late 1980s. Cuttings of the best trees are often grafted onto those with the strongest roots. Most pollinated flowers develop into tiny pods called cherelles, but the tree will only sustain as many pods as it can nourish (one cacao tree can grow as many as 120,000 flowers a year!)

After the pods are harvested and left to rest, they’re split in two to give up their beans which, along with the pulp, are fermented on site or in a local fermentary. The cacao farmers put the beans into shallow boxes, and then let the sun and bacteria go to work. The seeds are where you get all those fancy tasting notes—the cherries and plums and tropical fruits, the vanilla and whiskey and smoke.

After the fermentation and drying, almost all of the time, the beans are packed into 150 pound sacks and loaded into 40 foot long containers that hold 26 metric tons. Each shipment is divvied up among different bean-to-bar chocolate makers in something called collaborative shipping, Corey and Dave then sort and clean the beans, which also doesn’t happen in industrial chocolate as—get ready—the FDA allows up to 11 insect parts per 100 grams.

The beans are cleaned, then roasted and sorted to separate the shells from the nibs, the heart of chocolate. Letterpress has two grinders inhouse, sweetly named “Magnus” (powerhouse in Old Norse), and “Mildred,” (Old English for strength). Magnus and Mildred crush the nibs, separating out their 50% cocoa butter from their 50% cacao solids. Dave tells me that this is another diverging point between Letterpress and industrial chocolate like Hershey’s. Not only does Hershey’s start with bulk commodity cacao, but they also remove the expensive cocoa butter and replace it with substitutes, such as vegetable shortening. A typical bar of industrial chocolate has about 10% cacao, while Dave and Corey’s have 70%.

After the initial grinding phase, Letterpress’ chocolate is conched, or heated to volatize certain compounds, sugar is added, then back to the grinder for two to three days. The chocolate is then chilled overnight and aged for at least a month. When the chocolate is ready, it’s melted and poured into a tempering machine which crystallizes the cocoa butter for that snap we all like, and that satinysheen. So there you have it, bean—to—bar. Start with the beans, finish with the bars.

But chocolate is political. In an age when photos of happy farmers are on many of the bean-to-bar artisan labels, it can be murky that the quality of the chocolate is not made in the making, but in that 80% of the flavor that lives in the beans. In other words, it’s not

the white woman in Brooklyn (or the white couple in Hollywood) who should be making the profits, but the farmers themselves who, if not reaping the benefits, should at least be getting their fair shake. Letterpress is one of a number of passionate chocolate-makers that prioritizes their relationships with cacao growers all over the world. Dave and Corey source beans from the Cacao Belt, 20 degrees north and south of the equator, places like Belize, Tanzania, Ecuador, Jamaica, Costa Rica, and Ghana. Their closest relationship is with Ucayali River Cacao outside Pucallpa in Northeastern Peru. Ucayali River buys comun cacao and other varietals from almost 400 cacao farmers in the area, then ferments it in wooden boxes before sundrying the beans.

Through Letterpress, the farm has also partnered with USAID and Alianza Cacao Peru to give local farmers an alternative to heavily narco-trafficked cocaine. Cocaine is extracted from the leaves of the coca plant, not the cacao tree, but their payment is illegal and in risky cash.

Artisanal chocolate makers talk a lot about Direct Trade as opposed to Fair Trade as opposed to the International Commodities price. The idea is that, with Direct Trade, there’s no middle man, and so the farmers get more. The International Commodities price for cacao is around $2500 a metric ton, the Fair Trade price is that plus a 10% premium. The Direct Trade price that Dave and Corey pay is a lot more, anywhere from an astrounding $8,000 to $17,000 for a limited edition ton. To some extent this is passed along to the consumer; Letterpress bars are $18, though the difference between their chocolate and, say, mass-produced Mars is like the difference between suntan lotion and a fine wine with its own terroir.           At the end of my eye-opening tour of Letterpress’ chocolate factory, I brought home a selection, and laid them out on the kitchen table for my partner and myself. Though I struggled a bit to isolate the tasting notes listed on the bars, the difference between them and their complexity was astounding. The Jamaican bar, made with Desmond Jadusingh’s Bachelor’s Hall cacao, tasted faintly of starfruit, mocha and spice. The Tranquilidad bar from Bolivia, of buttercream and espresso. The Ucayali, of mocha, star anise, pepper and cedar. Every label had a description of the farm, the fermenting process, and flavor profile to look for. It made me think of chocolate in a whole different way and, appropriately, put the emphasis on the growers. This past July, at the The Academy of Chocolate, basically chocolate’s Academy Awards, their single origin bars beat out every other US chocolate company, sweeping nine Gold and Silver awards, and they’re right down the street. ■

From Seed to Bar

Radical Chocolate at a Spectacular Cloud Forest Hotel

The more I talked to chocolate people— and yes, they’re a passionate tribe—the more I learned about the all-important relationships with cacao growers around the world. This made me so excited when Hacienda AltaGracia, an Auberge Resort in the Telemanca mountains of Costa Rica, invited me to visit and witness their cacao program.

I arrived at night and was driven four hours into woodlands cacophonous with birdsong. The hacienda itself—leafy in the dark— is on a coffee plantation and surrounded by an almost shocking biodiversity. In night hikes, you might encounter glass frogs—you can see through their skin to their skeletons—and, during the day, a raucous conference of birds. I looked out from the terrace of my plush casita the next morning, and saw drifts of mist float past. Turkey vultures rode the wind currents. In addition to the coffee farm, the property has riding stables, an organic chef’s garden, and a 20,000 square foot glorious spa by The Well, a New York holistic brand. Everything on the 180 acres is bright, turned up a notch, as if there’s a vivid filter everywhere you look. This is chocolate country.

About a year ago, Hacienda AltaGracia made the unusual choice of hiring a South African couple, Liezl Odendaal and Arno Janse van Renseburg, to run their culinary program. On a sunny morning in June, they meet me at the low slung and luxurious main lodge of the hotel.

Liezl is a toasty color, from her reddish blonde hair to her freckled skin. She wears smart girl glasses and laughs often, wrinkling her nose. Arno is more easygoing—at least out of the kitchen—though you also get the sense that, together, these two make a formidable pair. Hired during the pandemic during a virtual session—they said their audition felt like a cooking show—they are committed to not only tasting everything they’ve never tasted before—but also to making

BY LISA ALEXANDER

Photo: Marvin on his Cacao Farm. Photo by Bri Dwyer

alliances within the community, so Hacienda AltaGracia becomes more and more knit into its sense of place.

As we leave the grounds and head towards the Valley, our Jeep bumps across pitted roads of red clay. The sky is white and hot, the leaves getting bigger and more dusty as we drive. The small towns seem less and less tidy as we get closer and closer to wilder lands. Eventually we turn into a driveway with a white house and an agricultural sign. Marvin, a compact man in shorts, bounds out greet us with a big smile. Two red dogs snooze in the dirt, barely looking up. Marvin sits us down in his open air dining room. Cloth masks are drying on a clothes line, a visible sign of the pandemic. His wife comes out with a tray and hot chocolate in tiny glass cups.

“That’s my chocolate,” Marvin says in Spanish as Liezl translates.

Farmers like Marvin get their criollo cacao trees as seedlings from CATIE, an investigational agricultural center in Turrialba. Agricultural centers like CATIE play a big part in keeping cacao pest-free and healthy by developing a disease-resistant root stock.

Marvin’s plantation is slowly being fully developed, with wide trails carved into the hills, and lines of different cacao trees. The right trees and complimentary crops are only the beginning though for Marvin, because the machines to produce chocolate on site are expensive and he’ll need some help. Marvin’s new fermentation shed is funded by an organization called ACICAFOC, and more aid is needed for a winnower, roaster and grinders. Liezl and Arno are helping to apply for the grants and also—crucially—to demonstrate to the government that there’s a built-in market for Marvin’s chocolate at Hacienda AltaGracia. They’re also teaching him chocolate-making technique, including best texture and flavor profiles. It’s a bespoke operation, from seed to bar.

Together we walk down the hill of Marvin’s huge property. Everywhere you look something grows in abundance. Tiny pink peppercorns bead the leaves of an uber green bush. Graceful curls of bananas sport an otherworldly pink flower. Marvin’s wife’s hives yield mariola honey, packed with antioxidants. A silvery field of sugarcane stretches into the distance. And there’s cacao. Everywhere.

The football-sized pods grow stuck to the tree trunks like something out of Dr Seuss. Rows of them have been grafted with cuttings and are being closely observed.

“The whole place is a lab,” Marvin says.

He machetes off a pod for me to taste, opening it up like a book. The seeds remind me of lychee, slightly furred, slightly slimy—no taste of chocolate at all—the kernel so bitter it puckers my mouth.

Chocolate has been here for thousands of years. Liesel tells me that Costa

Rica is different from some neighboring countries because its Mesoamerican population was never enslaved and forced to farm the land. The Mayans and Aztecs drank chocolate here 2500 years ago, reserving it for royals and flavoring it with achiote chili, pepper, vanilla, and flowers for both fragrance and psychotropic effects. Glorious vessels inscribed with the flavors of the chocolate being served have been found. They even used cacao beans as money. It wasn’t until a delegation of Kekchi Maya nobles from Alta Verapaz introduced the drink to the Spanish court, that it caught on, though the Europeans preferred it heavily sweetened. The government in Costa Rica has systems in place to export almost everything, while import taxes for products like sugar are steep, as much as 40%. Marvin seems eager to grow and learn and find a way to make their land as profitable as he can. One gets the sense that it’s a struggle because of government bureaucracy and lack of support, at least in helping the farmers produce in Costa Rica rather than exporting the raw materials. As Marvin says, “It was a lucky day, when he met Liezl and Arno,” and with him, and the community of cacao growers in the valley, there’s hope that soon they’ll produce world class chocolate here, and that’s what makes this story so important. Here we are on the eve of a true seed-to-bar, though it’s also taking the involvement of two South African chefs, Liesel and Arno, as well as the institution of a forward-thinking luxury hotel to help push it through. What matters though is that Marvin, and his community, are getting the help they need to start a movement where chocolate is made on site. Then, when the label says beanto-bar, no, seed-to-bar, we can know we’re tasting something

Top left: Cacao immersion; Top right: Hillside casita; Bottom center: Leizl and Arno in their Chef’s Garden; right (above): The Bar. All photos courtesy of Hacienda AltaGracia, Auberge Resorts Collection

radical.

Later that afternoon we go back to the resort which is, in all its natural splendor, grand. One night, we have a Cienfuegos show of high stepping Costa Rica horses—small and fast—who also bolt across the ring while their caballistas spear tiny rings in a game called picadero. The entire stable area is lit up by massive bonfires, and the food is cooked over a huge open fire, succulent chicken with chimichurri sauce, giant T-bones, and legs of lamb swinging over the hearth.

Another night I show up Grano, the fanciest restaurant in the compound, during one of the early evening’s epic rain storm— we’re talking buckets here, a wonderful thrumming pelting sound.

Grano showcases Liezl and Arno’s beautiful food, much of it from surrounding organic farms and their own chef’s garden. There’s prawns with hearts of palm and avocado leaf salsa and shitake mushrooms with queso fresco and green peppercorn vinaigrette. For me, the belle of the ball is an elephant garlic that Arno tells me has been cooked for two months at 60 degrees. I’ve never had anything like it, sweet, with the slightest tinge of funk, purple-y black and perfectly paired with arracacha (a taro-like root vegetable) and a potato crisp. Arno tells me that he and Liezl work together almost symbiotically—four sets of tastebuds instead of two—responding to different flavors and bouncing off each other as they create. Their food is delicate as well as intense.

Left: the pool at The Well; Below: the outside pool. Right: Fresh cacao pod. Photos courtesy of Hacien da Altagracia

Liesel’s coffee spuma with the tres leches cake has a deep coffee quality that’s almost savory rather than sweet, pairing beautifully with the childhood sweetness of banana ice cream. Which brings me to another novelty here, with their insistence on local ingredients and, since wheat is imported, the flours used to bake are all gluten-free. Banana. Yucca. Amaranth. And somehow they’re just as light and fluffy too, though be careful of that banana bread; it turned into kind of a serious addiction over here.

At the Mercado—the café that serves as a hub of the hotel— barista Melany introduces me to a vandola, a kind of ceramic drip coffee maker, to bloom Laurina, a naturally low- caffeinated blend from a farm called Volcan Azul. The coffee is perfectly balanced, a little citrusy and nutty at the same time. After a cup (and a banana fritter I can’t resist) it begins to pour, which means it’s time to visit The Well.

The pool at the spa is a bewitching expanse of water housed in a greenhouse affair, cosmic when it’s pouring outside. Air plants and orchids drip from the ceiling in containers, whirpools bubble and, with the windows open, you can hear the birds, whooping and chattering in the shelter of giant leaves. Huge beds of rose-colored marble are heated, so you can apply great gobs of herbaceous clay and then lie on the stone to let it get crispy, before you rinse off with a shower before slipping once again into the pool.

The treatments are thoughtful and skilled, the windows open again in the spare rooms to the cacophony of nature and color outside. With ceramic mandalas lining the front hall (close your eyes and let your fingers trace the maze), rainforest crystal balancing ceremonies and handblown glass bottles in the essential oil bar, it might be the best of Gwyneth Paltrow, but here it feels right at home.

The River Bath in particular is something else. A coffee scrub leaves my skin pink and tingling before I rinse off in a freezing white foamy river, and then soak in a huge bath built out of stones and heated by burning logs. As I loll around in the hot water, listening to the white water below, I am handed a frothy cup of hot chocolate, spicy with chili and cardamon. Of course.

There are a number of families at this all-inclusive resort,

Above: Interior of Hillside Casita; Below: The Mercado. Photos courtesy of Hacienda AltaGracia, Auberge Resorts Collection

some of three generations, everyone wandering around in shorts and looking a little stunned by the sheer variety of nature on display. There are also all kinds of adventures, like high canopy climbs, trips into the mountains to visit organic farms and waterfalls. A whole network of golf carts and restored Jeeps whisk me around, and everyone greets me by name. As I leave, Liezl presses something into my hand. It’s Marvin’s wife’s honey, magic enough to remember this beautiful place.

■

Photo: An expert-led game drive experience at South Africa’s Royal Malewane. | All photos provided by The Royal Portfolio.

The Royal

Treatment

BY SHAUNA BURKE

A safari at Royal Malewane in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park is the quintessential bucket list trip, offering a true unwinding from the day-to-day L.A. grind, with spectacular dining and wildlife experiences to boot.

oing on safari is one of those luxurious adventures that lands on most every traveler’s bucket list but can seem so distant and removed from our lives in the L.A. grind.

After spending some time in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park, I can say this is exactly the trip I needed in order to really get away, unwind, refocus, and come back to my day-to-day life with a greater sense of purpose and conviction. I ate spectacularly— sometimes with a view of giraffes and elephants drinking from the waterhole—unclenched my shoulders in the spa, awoke to the sounds of baboons, explored the African bush searching for the Big Five, and made great new friends each evening back at the lodge.

The Royal Portfolio began in 1999 when Liz and Phil Biden made the decision to convert their holiday home in the African bush into what is now Royal Malewane. Once I learned this, everything instantly clicked. Arriving at Royal Malewane feels like pulling up to a friend’s house—the staff are outside, waving, eager to welcome each guest by name, usually with a cold drink and a cold towel ready to hand over. They ask to hear about your day of game viewing, reacting enthusiastically to stories they’ve probably heard a million times—‘can you believe we saw a leopard?!’—and take note of each guest’s preferences, like favorite dessert or a particular brand of gin for their martini. The Bidens have woven in the same sense of personalized, intimate hospitality that comes with traveling to see friends and family, and I can imagine this is why they have so many repeat guests. Walking through the doors of our suite really felt like coming home at the end of each day.

One of their repeat guests just so happened to be my own mother, whose dream it was to take her children to experience a safari here. She was quite the well-traveled woman and had a major soft spot for Africa—she couldn’t get enough of the sense of freedom and wildness that came

from spending time in the African bush. When she died of breast cancer in 2018, I knew I needed to make it a point to come here. An early September trip proved to be the ideal time for game viewing, pleasant weather, and a heart-opening adventure.

Royal Malewane is well known as one of the most luxurious safari lodges in Africa, and they’ve just expanded with the opening of Waterside this past July. Waterside’s freestanding suites are private, luxurious, and bursting with color—each with its own outdoor deck and solar-heated plunge pool, which makes it tough to peel yourself away to go on a game drive. The property also boasts a private bush villa, Waterside House, and all are connected to the lodge’s reception, a beautiful indoor/outdoor dining and bar area, lots of little hangout spots, a scenic library, spa, gym, and yoga room. The comfortable outdoor common areas, nestled in the thicket of fever trees, offer a unique perspective for game viewing, with guests often enjoying breakfast, lunch, or a midday cocktail—don’t miss the local spirits and wines on offer—with elephants, hippos, nyalas, and the host of other animals and birds that use the waterhole each day.

Liz Biden’s sense of style is really what makes Royal Malewane so unique. I had the chance to experience each property—The Lodge, The Farmstead, and Waterside—and each has its own distinct personality. The Lodge is in the classic “Out of Africa” style, with earth tones and traditional, timeless design. The Farmstead is

Left (top): Luxury Suite interior at Waterside; Left (bottom corner): Aerial view of Waterside; Left (center top and bottom): Luxury suite bathroom with soaking tub, overlooking the private deck and an exterior shot of the private deck with plunge pool, daybed, and lounge chairs; Right (bottom): Up close and personal with lions while on an expert-led game drive with Royal Malewane.

“

The Bidens have woven in the same sense of personalized, intimate hospitality that comes with traveling to see friends and family, and I can imagine this is why they have so many repeat guests. Walking through the doors of our suite really felt like coming home...”

EDIBLE EXPLORER

Right: A sundowner — enjoying cocktails and snacks like arancini and fresh vegetable skewers— during an expert-led game drive with Royal Malewane’s guides and trackers; Below: A leopard sighting—one of the Big Five—during an evening game drive in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park.

quiet, intimate, and contemporary. Waterside is a bit more modern, lively, and spacious, elevated above the banks of a bustling watering hole. The accommodations at Waterside are enchanting, eclectic, colorful, and warm, with the interiors often being a stark contrast to the bush—in the best possible way. The property manages to be romantic, family-friendly, peaceful, and lively, all at the same time. It’s a truly unique vibe that each guest gets to experience in their own way.

Located on the 34,595-acre Thornybush Private Game Reserve within the Greater Kruger National Park, Royal Malewane is situated in just the right spot for an awesome wildlife experience. The guiding team here is unmatched—not only do all field guides exude a wild passion for the African bush, they each hold the highest Field Guides Association of Southern Africa (FGASA) qualifications as well as Advanced Rifle Handling certificates, and you’ll find two of only seven living Master Trackers in the world at Royal Malewane—the only two employed in the entire Greater Kruger National Park. We saw the Big Five game animals—lion, leopard, rhinoceros, Cape buffalo, and African bush elephant—all in one day, not even counting our rare cheetah sighting, zebra, hippopotamus, crocodile, giraffe, nyala, impala, wildebeest, and the list goes on and on, which is pretty incredible and not at all uncommon here. What no one prepared me for was how well-fed us safari-goers would be. At first I thought we were being fattened up for sacrifice to the lions, but the wild dining experience is just part of the luxurious adventure here. After our evening game drive and a sundowner in the bush—enjoying a cocktail and homemade snacks like arancini—we’d all head back to the lodge for dinner. Cheslin Cornelissen, head chef at Waterside,

EDIBLE

Top left: Breakfast is served on the deck of the main lodge; Top right and bottom right: One of the many stunning dishes on chef Cheslin Cornelissen’s menu at Waterside; Bottom left: The bar at Royal Malewane’s Waterside lodge.

EDIBLE EXPLORER

was plucked from the Royal Portfolio’s kitchen at The Silo Hotel in Cape Town to craft a sophisticated but approachable menu dedicated to South African cuisine. The kitchen will make each guest just about anything they’d like, but the day’s menus offer surprises like grilled wildebeest loin or warthog carpaccio along with fresh pastas, local seafood, and plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, including local avocados that are the size of my head. I’m still dreaming about the roasted nectarine salad and spicy steamed mussels from our first night—never to be seen on the menu again. Cheslin doesn’t like to offer the same dish to any guest twice, so the menu is always fresh, but he has the chance to do some recycling once a new set of guests arrive.

After a chilly early-morning game drive, breakfast back at the lodge was my favorite meal of the day. I loved tucking into a pot of hot tea while nibbling from the boards of pastries, preserves, charcuterie, and cheeses— and this is before the actual breakfast arrives at the table. I feasted on dishes like roasted eggplant shakshuka, salted caramel waffles, cheesy eggs with spicy pepper relish and sausage, crab Benedict, and of course this Angeleno couldn’t go a few days without her avocado toast.

The most memorable meal was

perhaps the bush dinner, where our guide drove us to a feast in the heart of the African wilderness—glowing lanterns providing just the gentlest flickering light so as not to disturb the atmosphere too much. We started off with wine and cocktails under the stars before sitting for a family-style dinner of grilled impala loin, salmon, rack of lamb, an array of sides, and of course dessert with the sounds of the local village choir. It was quite the send-off.

The most wonderful thing about a trip like this is that each guest can experience the African bush at their own pace—without obligation or a jampacked schedule of daily activities. If you want to be busy, you can easily fill endless days with bush walks, game drives, spa

Left: Enjoying the sunrise with a hot beverage at one of Royal Malewane’s Royal Suites before a morning game drive—morning and evening game drives are included daily; Below: A spa treatment at Royal Malewane’s Lodge spa—each property has their own unique spa and treatments on offer.

treatments, and sumptuous dining. If you want to relax, the suites and grounds are so luxurious you’ll never want to leave. It’s truly to each their own. If ever there were an L.A. get(far)away, I’d choose this over poolside margaritas any day.

I ended the trip with a few lovingly chosen locally-crafted wares for my home that will serve as fond reminders of my special time here and warmly echo my mother’s many travel stories. The memories I created on this adventure will last a lifetime and, if I’m really lucky, beyond. ■

“...our guide drove us to a feast in the heart of the African wilderness—glowing lanterns providing just the gentlest flickering light so as not to disturb the atmosphere...”

Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwich with Meringue, Honeycomb, and Candied Almonds

The perfect sweet treat after a day searching for game in the African bush, Waterside at Royal Malewane’s head chef, Cheslin Cornelissen, shares his decadent chocolate ice cream sandwich recipe with us.

Chocolate Cookie

Makes about 30 cookies

Ingredients

300g cake flour

75g cocoa powder

5ml baking soda

2ml salt

180g unsalted butter

200g granulated sugar

100g brow nsugar

5ml vanilla

30ml orange zest

2 eggs

140g dark chocolate chips

140g milk chocolate chips

Method

Preheat oven to 180ºC and line baking trys with parchment paper. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl. Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla, and orange zest until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the dry ingrecients until well combined. Don’t over mix. Add the chocolate chips. Using a tablespoon, drop cookies onto the baking trays and bake 10-15 minutes until cracked on top. Let the cookies cool completely and place in an airtight container.

Chocolate Ice Cream

Makes about 35 portions

Ingredients

1500g cream

500g milk

7 eggs

300g caster sugar

550g dark chocolate

SOME OF THIS SEASON'S MOST DELICIOUS READS

curated by Ken Concepcion, co-owner of DTLA’s

Fall always brings a return to routines of comfort and certainly one of those is being in the kitchen, cooking and enjoying food in the company of loved ones. For us at the shop, Fall ushers in the biggest releases of the year that get everyone all the way to the holidays.

The culinary polymath collective that is the Bronx-based Ghetto Gastro (founded by chefs Lester Walker, Jon Gray, and Pierre Serrao) ushers into the world their first book, Ghetto Gastro Presents: Black Power Kitchen. Part cookbook, part manifesto, and 100% singular vision, Black Power Kitchen sits right at the intersection of food, visual art, culture, social justice, and fashion. Food has always been both personal and political and these past few years of activism coupled with the identification and acknowledgement of indigenous and historical foodways has clearly brought this notion to the forefront. One of the signature dishes of Ghetto Gastro is the Triple Cs, reveling in the high/low combo of crispy cornbread, lush crab salad, and caviar. Through deliciousness we can still learn and grow beyond what we think food is about.

Another title that spotlights culinary and agricultural

traditions is the treasure trove that is Masa: Techniques, Recipes, and Reflections on a Timeless Staple by Jorge Gaviria of Masienda, an incredible resource and supplier of single-origin corn ingredients. Perhaps for the first time in the English language, here we have a book that takes us on the deepest of deep dives into the world of Mesoamerican food staples, deftly examining a rainbow-worthy range of flavors, textures, colors, and uses available to the modern cook. One that has been around for centuries is the memela from Oaxaca. A thick tortilla and similar to a sope but with less defined ridges, a memela is one of Gavira’s most beloved breakfasts ever, topped with asiento (a heady, slow-cooked pork paste), creamy bean puree, some salty queso fresco or melty queso oaxaca and of course, lashed with a bright salsa - there’s little left to accomplish in a day that can’t be conquered after a memela.

Just in time for Fall, celebrated food photographer and author Andrea Gentl’s glorious celebration of the fungi world in Cooking With Mushrooms: A Fungi Lover’s Guide to World’s Most Versatile, Flavorful, and Health-Boosting Ingredients will surely be a treasured resources for all cooks. Mushrooms are not only champions of earthy

umami, but here come in a myriad of textures—crunchy to luscious— and forms—granola, miso, schnitzel, even a creme caramel(!)—while also proudly capable of being the poster child for sustainability and plant-based lifestyles. Take Gentl’s elemental preparation of her Salt and Pepper Mushrooms. An ode to Italian brick chicken, these mushrooms (oysters, trumpets, and lion’s mane are suggested here) are simply seasoned, then seared in hot cast iron pan and pressed down as they roast, giving up their juices while concentrating their flavors and focusing their meaty textures. Glorious enough to enjoy with a glass of red and easy enough to have on a Tuesday night.

In Frankie Gaw’s powerful First Generation: Recipes from My Taiwanese-American Home [A Cookbook], food acts both as a lifeline to ancestral memory and a way to hasten Gaw’s family’s assimilation into American culture. It’s equally a marvel as a personally-driven collection of recipes, as well as a remarkable account of what it is like to grow up as a first generation Asian American in the Nineties and early Aughts. Take the Butternut Squash and Pork Guo-Tie, plump and delicate dumplings perfect for the fall, with the farmers markets here flush with so many incredible varieties of winter squash that would work well. The book takes us down a rabbit hole of dumplings from dough to filling to forming to your plate. These guotie are a nod to Gaw’s love of Trader Joe’s ravioli which he seemingly subsisted on in college, while proudly celebrating his Taiwanese heritage.

The food made in the beloved Pasta Grannies YouTube series is only half of the reason why millions of subscribers tune in. What

we covet is watching these incredible grannies - the nonnas in their house dresses - effortlessly conjure up yards of tagliatelle, multitudes of arrancini, and countless ravioli, just as they have for decades. In series creator/author Vicky Bennison’s second book, Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking, the grannies are yet again transported to our own kitchens and imaginations. Nodding to the cooler climate of the Fall and the change in seasons, the Chestnut Gnocchi with Walnut Pesto offered up by 91-year-old Pina, from Liguria, embraces the autumn bounty with both learned frugality and elegance.

Best-selling Dessert Person author and former Bon Appetit test kitchen star, Claire Saffitz returns with her equally whimsical and technique-driven, What’s For Dessert: Simple Recipes for Dessert People and, we’re happy to report, there isn’t a whiff of a sophomore slump of disappointment. Saffitz continues to offer up inventive desserts which nod smartly to classic flavor pairings or nostalgia. She also knows best when to leave a classic alone and gives her fans an infallible creme brule and an iconic Eton Mess. With Fall in Southern California still predictably in the high 80s, her Persimmon Panna Cotta will make everyone happy. A semi-frozen dessert with enough richness and mouthfeel to satisfy, it also pays attention to the bounty of persimmons (both hachiya and fuyu) beloved by so many immigrant communities here in LA. With only 30 minutes of active prep time and just a long afternoon in the freezer to set, this panna cotta will impress anyone who crosses its path.

Cooking the Books

Head to the kitchen with a few of our favorite recipes mentioned above. You can find more at ediblela.com.

Pina’s Gnocchi Di Castagne Con Pesto Chestnut Gnocchi With Walnut Pesto From Liguria

Recipe excerpted with permission from Pasta Grannies Comfort Cooking by Vicky Bennison, published by Hardie Grant Books September 2022, Servings 4–6

‘I don’t understand why you come all the way up here to film me make gnocchi; can’t you make them yourselves?’ 91-year- old Pina thought we were mad not to have this life skill. Like Cicci (on page xx), Pina lives in the mountains behind Genova in Liguria, though they live about 2 hours’ drive from each other. Pina ran the village bakery and shop for many years, and still has a few shelves with emergency packets of pasta and tinned tomatoes for when her neighbors get caught short. She used to carry the provisions on her back for the last two kilometers before the road got built, and even now only threewheeled scooters can navigate the village’s cobbled paths.

Making the most of what you have is second nature to Pina: she uses walnuts because pine nuts are too expensive, she grows her own potatoes, and the foraged chestnuts make more costly wheat flour go further. So, in that spirit, if you don’t have chestnut flour, make these using just wheat flour.

FOR THE GNOCCHI

500 g (1 lb 2 oz) floury potatoes

150 g (5 oz/11⁄4 cups) 00 plus an extra 35–40 g (1–11⁄2 oz) for the board

50 g (13⁄4 oz/1⁄3 cup) chestnut flour

5 g (1 teaspoon) salt

freshly ground pepper, to serve

FOR THE PESTO

100 ml (31⁄2 fl oz/scant 1⁄2 cup) extra-virgin olive oil

30 g (1 oz) basil

50 g (13⁄4 oz) grated Parmigiano Reggiano

50 g (13⁄4 oz) thick cream

First, make the gnocchi. Pina boils her potatoes with the skin on; an alternative is to bake the potatoes in a moderate oven as this gives them a nice fluffy texture. Whichever method you choose, once the spuds are soft, remove the skins and mash the flesh. Have your extra flour for the board to hand and don’t leave the mash to cool: dump it straight onto your wooden board while it’s still steaming, using a spoon. This moisture helps you to make a good dough. Mix the flours and salt and mush the mixture into the mash, then gently knead the mixture until you obtain a smooth non-sticky dough that does not break apart. Stop as soon as you get to this point; you don’t want to overwork the dough.

Use some of the extra flour to dust your board and roll out ropes of dough about 2 cm (3⁄4 in) in diameter and then cut each rope into two-finger-wide pieces. Use the same two fingertips to press into each gnocco and pull it back gently across the board to flatten and curl the dough. The results are gnocchi which look like thick or rustic cavatelli.

Pina’s Gnocchi Di Castagne Con Pesto Chestnut Gnocchi With Walnut Pesto from Pasta Grannies Comfort Cooking by Vicky Bennison

COOKING THE BOOKS

Keep them well floured and spread out.

For the pesto, put the garlic, walnuts and oil into the bowl of a food processor and blitz until you have a rough paste. Now add the basil and blend again, before adding the Parmigiano. You want a thick, smooth sauce. Use a spatula to scrap the pesto into a bowl and stir through the cream.

Bring a large saucepan of heavily salted water to the boil. Tip in the gnocchi and give them a good stir to stop them from sticking. Once the water has returned to the boil, try the gnocchi every 30 seconds or so to see if they are cooked. When they are done, drain them through a colander. Pesto should never be cooked, so place the gnocchi in a warm bowl and dress them as you would a salad with the pesto.

Serve with plenty of freshly ground black pepper.

Salt And Pepper Brick Mushrooms

SERVES 4

1⁄2 teaspoon Himalayan pink salt

1⁄2 teaspoon cracked black pepper 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 11⁄2 pounds (680 g) fresh mushrooms, such as oyster, maitake, lion’s mane, or portobello (one large piece or several medium pieces)

2 teaspoons capers, rinsed if salt-packed

1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving

In this vegetarian riff on the classic brick chicken, mushrooms are simply cooked with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, with capers added for zing. I have used oyster, maitake, and lion’s mane— all are delicious. Each variety has a different moisture content and will release varying amounts of moisture as the mushrooms cook. I don’t keep bricks in my kitchen, but a second cast-iron skillet or Dutch oven gets the job done. The weight of the second pan compresses the mushrooms and allows a nice crunchy crust to form while keeping them juicy and tender on the inside. Once you do this a couple of times, you might start keeping bricks in your kitchen!

In a small bowl, combine the salt and pepper.

In a large cast-iron skillet, heat the oil over medium-low heat until it begins to shimmer. Place the mushrooms in the skillet and sprinkle with half the salt and pepper mixture and half the capers. Cover the mushrooms with a sheet of foil, folding it into a round to cover the mushrooms and fit the contours of the skillet. Place a Dutch oven or another cast-iron skillet the same size as the first one on top of the foil. With two kitchen towels or oven mitts, press down firmly on the skillet to flatten the mushrooms beneath it; the mushrooms will release moisture as they cook. Press intermittently until a nice crust has formed, 10 to 12 minutes. Flip the mushrooms

Salt and Pepper Brick Mushrooms from from Andrea Gentl’s Cooking with Mushrooms

over, sprinkle with the remaining salt and pepper mixture and capers, and cook the other side the same way, weighting and pressing intermittently for about 10 minutes longer.

Remove from the heat and serve hot, with lemon wedges for squeezing.

Triple Cs

Excerpted from Ghetto Gastro Presents Black Power Kitchen by By Jon Gray, Pierre Serrao, Lester Walker With Osayi Endolyn (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2022.

Our cooking ethos is guided by a few important principles: It’s gotta be right and to the bite. Done with finesse, but make it look effortless. Our food is delicious and beautiful. Intentional and subversive. And always with that swag, as in the Triple Cs.

Triple Cs is quintessential Ghetto Gastro, so it deserves to stand on its own. It features seared cornbread, crab salad, and caviar.

Cornbread

Native Americans, Africans, and ancient Mesoamericans made cornmeal and its many iterations a core food. We can look to johnnycakes, corn pone, spoon bread, and cornbread as the expression of Indigenous and enslaved peoples. Somehow, the cultures that put in the work and sacrifice, ultimately building global economies, are the ones that get exploited.

Native American, Black, and brown communities are among the most food insecure in the United States. Even still, our innumerable contributions are the foundation of global wealth.

Crab salad

When our political representatives take actions that divest resources from our communities, we’re told it’s like crabs in a barrel. The metaphor suggests that if we’re all going down, no one can get out. But that analogy is insufficient because crabs belong in and around water. And maybe the crab isn’t trying to block the other one’s freedom. Maybe they’re all trying to link up and help each other get out.

Caviar

Caviar—black gold—is thought of as the pinnacle of European luxury. But caviar originates in the Middle East and Asia, an example of how incomplete histories can alter our view about who gets to enjoy what.

Serves 12 Ingredients

For the cornbread

14 ounces (3½ sticks/400 g) unsalted butter, plus more for greasing

......recipe continued on ediblela.com

COOKING THE

Triple Cs from Ghetto Gastro Presents Black Power Kitchen

THE LAST BITE

Introducing the Viv

PHOTOS BY CAROLINA KORMAN RECIPE BY ROSE WILDE

Baker Rose Wilde lives in one of lovely those old Crafts man houses in Normandie-Adams where, amid the moldings and columns and wood floors, she’s installed an extra fridge and stacked an extra room full of rolling pins and baking boards. Rose is irrepressible herself, with her fluffy red hair, dazzling smile and retro style. She’s been the pastry chef at Rossoblu, Rustic Canyon and Manuela, as well as being the owner and fermenter behind Red Bread. With a law degree from UCLA (specialty: human rights) and Mad Academy in Copenhagen cred, she’s also passionate about translating love into food.

“For me, when I’m decorating,” she says. “It’s always about making sure that generosity is very prevalent and upfront. I love to have things cascading down the sides (of the cake). I like to cut things differently. I like to pull petals from the flowers and leave them three-quarters there so there’s this idea of catching a moment in life. I think a lot about art and old still lifes where things were dying and living and everything was together and it had this really beautiful truth to it. Cake is so visceral for people because it’s usually something we only have on special moments, but I think we forget we have the power to borrow cake to make any moment special.”

So cake is a verb? Yes, to cake.

Rose has some pointers too when it comes to those edible flowers. The best thing is to avoid the ones at the supermarkets or flo rists, and grow your own on a little patch of windowsill. If you can’t do that, head outside to forage some wildflowers. Rose also sources from organic farmers at her local farmer’s market. “Ask where your flowers are from,” she says. “Just like your food.”

We immediately christened this fabulous rye olive oil cake

with dark chocolate buttercream, passion fruit, figs, grapes and edible flowers as The Viv, as in The Viv is Ready for her Closeup Now. “You can make this cake any day of the week,” Rose says. “And she’s still a showstopper.”

Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

Makes 1, 8” Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

170g All Purpose Flour

85g Rye whole grain Flour

234g cane sugar

4g kosher salt

6g baking powder

1g baking soda

200g whole milk

210g Olive Oil

2 eggs

40g lemon juice

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. In a medium bowl combine all the dry ingredients - both flours, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda. Whisk briefly to combine.

3. In a separate bowl place all the remaining ingredients. Whisk to combine.

THE LAST BITE

4. Pour your wet mixture into your dry mixture and whisk together till just combined.

5. Prepare on 8 inch pan with parchment and baking spray. Pour the batter into pan.

6. Bake for 30-35 minutes till the center is springy to the touch and the sides have begun to pull away from the pan.

7. Cool completely. Run an offset spatula along rim of the pan and over turn pan to release cake. Place cake on platter and frost with butter cream. Decorate with flowers and fruits, choose various sizes to add drama.

Chocolate Swiss Buttercream

Ingredients

115g egg whites

190g cane sugar

550g unsalted butter, room temperature

100g chocolate Chips

50g cocoa powder

1. Create a Bain Marie by placing 3 inches of water in a medium sauce pot and turn your heat to medium.

2. In the bowl of your stand mixer combine your egg whites and sugar. Place your stand mixer bowl over top the medium sauce pot to complete your Bain Marie.

3. Bring mixture to 161 degrees Fahrenheit stirring consistently.

4. Pull from heat and move to your stand mixer with the whisk attach ment. Whisk on high till heat subsides completely and it has tripled in volume and change to bright white.

5. While meringue is setting up, put a small bowl with chocolate over the Bain Marie to melt. Pull from heat when almost all is melted. Cool slightly.

6. Return to your meringue. Slowly add in butter to the mixture till soft waves of buttercream appear.

7. Flavor with melted chocolate and cocoa powder and whip to com bine. Add salt to season.

8. Frost cake with buttercream. ■

For years, Golden Door guests have savored the moments between tness classes with a warm cup of our organic, gluten-free, vegan potassium broth. It’s a delicious way to replenish tired muscles, boost your immune system, and indulge in a little taste of life at Golden Door, the World’s #1 Destination Spa.

“If only they could take the Golden Door experience and bottle it.”

Kathleen S. - 6X Guest